Defying Gravity
by tigerlily25
Summary: Everything falls eventually, no matter how hard or high you try to throw it. Series of in-episode tags to the premiere. *Spoilers for 7x01 Truth or Consequences*
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: I started out with the intent of writing a series of **little** tags to Truth or Consequences, and as usual, things quickly blew out into... well, this. _

_Spoilers for ToC, of course. If you haven't seen the episode, you might want to hold off until you either find it on the internet (like I did) or watch it on TV in whatever country you happen to reside in. In Australia, the premiere doesn't actually air until Tuesday... but I'm impatient as all hell and couldn't wait the extra week. Internet = love._

_Warning for minor swearing and possibly controversial views (this will probably become more evident in the second part, which will be posted in the next few days). If you want to chat about why I think the way I do about things revealed in the episode (and the last few eps of Season 6), feel free to PM or email me. I accept that not everybody shares my views and am always happy to hear others, but **outright flaming is** **not okay**._

_Begins immediately after Tony and Co arrive home from Israel. Hope you enjoy._

* * *

Three men step awkwardly from the plane, weary muscles protesting the hours of forced confinement. They unfold stiff limbs slowly like newborn lambs finding their feet in the outside world, away from the safety of warmth and moisture and _lub-dub, lub-dub_ .

Tony blinks in the bright light as the world spins and refocuses into something that should be familiar but somehow is not.

His shoulder throbs to an uneven staccato beat, dull and pulsing and insistent.

There are pills in his bag but he doesn't bother to reach for them. He doesn't like the shades of Ace Ventura they bring out in him. Painkillers and him are like Gibbs and wives. It feels good for awhile, but in the end they're more trouble than they're worth.

He does not speak, because in the silence he can pretend that her voice is not missing, throaty and low and distinctive in its manner. Denial is not just a river in Egypt. There are things to be said, but there will be time for that later. Reports to make and bones to pick and hot anger to spill like blood.

Angry arrows to aim at faraway targets, short and clipped and feathered on the ends.

Why. What. When. How.

They fall short. He's no Robin Hood, and he doubts that the Prince of Thieves could shoot an arrow across oceans, even an imaginary one. Better instead to concentrate on the throb in his shoulder and behind his eyes, rather than any fair maidens that might bear rescuing. This is the 21st century, for fuck's sake, and maidens these days wear combat boots and a little too much eyeliner and know how to disable knights with paperclips.

Maidens can just rescue themselves, anyway. He's done.

"Tony," Gibbs says sharply, piercing through the red haze. "Let's go."

Tony nods and follows Gibbs and Vance across the tarmac like a good little soldier. _Left; left; left right left._ Vance is whistling tunelessly, and for a moment Tony thinks of telling him to stop, because after the buzz and hum of the plane his nerves are shot and his head is whirling. He doesn't. Instead, he falls in line and adds his whistle to Vance's, purposely avoiding any attempt at harmony.

He almost smiles at Gibbs' wince.

Nobody has come to meet them, and Tony is glad of the absence of familiar faces. He doesn't feel like putting on his jester hat just now. The Charger waits where they left it, and he slides into the backseat with eyes firmly fixed on the world outside.

He refuses to look at the empty backseat where just yesterday (or maybe the day before – all the time zone-hopping is wreaking hell on his internal calendar) she sat in stony silence, pointedly avoiding his gaze. Ziva made her choice, and he has a right to be a little angry, just as he had a right to be suspicious of her odd behaviour before the world exploded into chaos.

She might not have intended their song to end this way – an unresolved cadence of anger and hurt and loss – but it has ended nonetheless. They hang like notes suspended in the air, waiting for a resolution. The conductor (reason and training and common sense) left the stage midway through the piece and like good little performers, they wait with instruments raised and mouths open, running out of air and desperately needing a pause, a breath, an end.

He gives in and digs through his pack for the little orange bottle, pops the top and palms the little white pills, one two three.

"Two should do it, DiNozzo," Gibbs says from the front seat without turning his head. Which – given that he's driving – is probably a good thing.

Tony rolls his eyes and tosses back two pills with a violent jerk of his head. _Oh_. Not the best idea, DiNozzo. His head thuds against the headrest. It's not as hard as Israeli concrete, but it hurts all the same.

The pills leave a bitter taste in his mouth and slide haltingly down his desert-dry throat.

Tony watches the city streets fly by. Beside him, the empty seat reminds him of what's missing, taunting and cold.

* * *

"_To train ze dolphin_," he says dreamily later that night to the blue-patterned armchair in Gibbs' lounge room, "_You must zink like ze dolphin_."

It doesn't reply. How rude.

The end table on his right speaks instead. "Whatever he's on, I want some."

The table sounds suspiciously like Abby. Tony blinks, and pigtails swim into view.

"Where's our fearless leader, Little Bo Peep?"

She stares at him with six reddened eyes, and he cowers, imagining scythes and black hooded figures and the smell of brimstone. From behind him, McGee says something that he can't quite make out amid the roaring in his ears, and Abby nods, head bouncing then stilling abruptly like a marionette with cut strings.

"Basement," she says after a long swirling pause. The word takes shape in the air and bursts wetly in a shower of rainbow bubbles.

"Ah, I see," he replies, though he's entirely not sure he does. "Looking for his lost sheep." She sniffles and shifts closer to him, smelling of soap, tears and fruit punch.

"Something like that."

"Do sheep drink bourbon?" Tony wonders.

Someone vaguely McGee-shaped swims into view and looks at him closely. He hands Tony a glass and his lips move but Tony's not sure he's hearing right. Either Timmy's picked up some mad Spanish skills, or Tony's going insane.

Nod and stretch lips back over teeth in a loose grin. Don't mention the sudden linguistic switch, or that McGee's face is spotted with green and blue. Blink and breathe and try for a joke.

He raises the glass and pretends that he meant for his hand to tremble. "Why thank you, Helpy Helperton."

Abby sighs and chews on her bottom lip. "Come on, Ace. I'll drive you home."

* * *

His fractured bone heals slowly, until one day he wakes up surprised that it doesn't hurt when he rolls heavily out of bed. Scars always heal. This, he's learnt through bitter experience. Scars heal, and bones knit, and bit by bit they pick up the pieces and fall back into old rhythms.

His anger fades gradually, though sometimes in the moments before sleep claims him he imagines she's sitting on the end of his bed, having appeared out of nowhere like she used to in the early years. Not moving, not speaking. Just watching him with her face twisted in grief and anger and betrayal.

"Don't look at me like that," he says one night into the empty air, sick of the spectre of her. "I did what I had to do, and I'd do it all over again."

She doesn't appear after that.

McGee loses his snark and starts to grow into his role as Tony's partner. Familiar pounding beats greet them when they enter Abby's lab, each time a little louder, and she starts to bounce again as though infected by the pulsing rhythm. Gibbs starts calling him DiNozzo again, but the head slaps remain a thing of the past, and sometimes he sits back and lets Tony take the lead. A miracle in itself.

It makes him wonder what the weather is like in Rota this time of year, and whether Gibbs is wondering if he's wondering. Almost ten years now, and the urge to move on comes and goes occasionally, making him itch and pace and strain at his boundaries.

It doesn't matter really whether he stays or goes, because a change of scenery doesn't mean a change of heart. He who has spent his life running knows this too well. And yet he lingers as he passes the internal employment board, stating the vacant positions and the experience needed. Bahrain. Norfolk. Yokosuka.

Tony stays, and watches the cherry blossoms bloom and then wither on the trees.

By the time summer arrives, they've found their feet again, and he's almost forgotten that once there was a patch of hair on the back of his head that never quite sat flat since he joined Gibbs' team. Tony forgets the sound of her voice, but occasionally he catches himself messing up the odd idiom, and he's never sure whether to smile or throw something just to hear it break.

One day he starts his usual hunt-and-peck on the keyboard and each strike of the keys sends odd noises ringing through the air. Cymbal, snare, glockenspiel. Bird whistles and car horns and the low pound of the bass drum with each vowel. McGee hovers hesitantly behind his desk, fingers suspended in nervous anticipation, and breaks into a relieved smile when Tony laughs out loud.

"You're messing with the master, McSneaky."

"You think I haven't been paying attention for the last five years, Tony?"

Tony considers this. "Fair call. Now, work your geek magic and turn my funky sound machine back into a keyboard before the Boss appears." He thinks for a minute. "And when you're done, can you show me how to do his?"

Miracle of miracles, Gibbs laughs when he logs in to the sound of chiming bells and maracas, and for a moment Tony almost expects to hear Kate join in. That's how long it's been since they last dared to prank Gibbs.

The next morning, he brings donuts (more as a tribute to days gone by than a sign of things to come), and lets McGee choose first. They fall into a pattern of shared lunches and easy banter. It's not quite the same, but if he had to choose anyone, he'd rather it be McGee watching his six. Well, other than Gibbs, obviously – but he won't be around forever.

The desk opposite his remains empty, but somehow it doesn't catch his eye quite as much as it used to.

* * *

One Wednesday afternoon in late June, McGee pokes his fork tentatively around in his rice, spearing individual grains and letting them fall, his mouth opening and closing every so often like someone's hit the mute button.

"Spit it out, Probie," Tony says finally, tired of waiting. The man in front of him has outgrown the taunting origins of the name, leaving something familiar and comforting behind, like broken-in shoes you just can't bear to part with.

"We need another agent," he blurts, avoiding Tony's eyes. "I mean, when it's quiet things are okay, but last week when we had those three cases at once… We need another set of hands."

The junior agent flinches as he says the words – as if expecting an angry retort – but Tony just digs his chopsticks into his Kung Pao chicken and lets the words roll around in his head. Ziva isn't coming back, and though he remembers the days when it was just him and Gibbs (and the long-forgotten and not missed Vivian, and later; Kate and McGee) in the bullpen, he can't deny that the cases continue to flood in and he's a little tired of the long days and longer nights.

Eventually he agrees; and so does Gibbs, and the search begins.

* * *

Tony stares at his cell phone late one night, not knowing what the time is in Israel or wherever in the world she is and not particularly caring. He is drunk and suddenly angry and determined to give her a piece of his mind.

He thinks in this moment that if circumstances were reversed, he'd quite like to put his gun to _her_ knee and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, keeping secrets and sneaking around and _not trusting him_. If she'd come to him…

If _he_ hadn't gone to _her_, would he be sitting here now trying to remember what her voice sounded like?

He can't quite see the numbers on the keypad through the bourbon haze, but his fingertips remember the familiar path that spells out _Ziva_.

Having long since given up on the awkward slippery surface of a glass, he tips the bottle up and takes a long pull, not taking his eyes off the screen. He's aware enough to realise that he crossed the line between blissfully intoxicated and nasty toilet-hugging drunk about twenty minutes and six aborted attempts ago, but not quite aware enough to stop his finger from hitting the button with as much conviction as Rocky landing the first punch to Apollo Creed's smug face.

The phone rings steadily, tinny and distant. Tony' s not sure whether to be happy about that or not. A click and silence for a long beat. He doesn't give her the chance to speak. The words bubble black and acidic from his lips, slurred and jumbled and he's not even sure he's speaking English at all.

And then he realizes that neither is she. He doesn't speak Hebrew, but he does recognize the distinctive sound of a voicemail greeting. God knows he's spent enough time listening to them – chasing up girls and chasing down leads. And other things.

It _is_ her voice though, low and throaty and with a hint of a smirk. The beep comes before he's ready for it, and it's like a pin that punctures his earlier resolve. He deflates with an inaudible sigh and snaps the phone shut, staring at it for a long twisting moment before winding up and pitching it straight down the centre of the room.

_Knocked it out of the fucking park, DiNozzo_.

* * *

The guys in the supply room roll their eyes when Tony tells them what he wants the next day. He's been down here more times than he can count in his time at NCIS. The formidable Gibbs-slap damages circuitry. It's a proven fact.

Tony doesn't want to consider what that might mean for his _brain_.

He doesn't bother to correct them, just signs the paperwork with a shaky hand and heading for the elevator in what he hopes isn't an 'I've been hit by the bourbon bus' walk. He presses the button for the squad room floor and breathes out air so tainted with alcohol that if he was a smoker he'd set himself on fire trying to blow out the match.

"Hey, thanks a lot," one of them calls as he tries to stay upright. Tony looks at Jake or John or Jim (not that it matters) with a raised eyebrow. Guy seems genuine enough. "You guys must be doin' a bang-up job. Elevator's been working great for weeks now."

The doors close on Tony's sickly grin. The world lurches and he wonders how Gibbs can stand the acidic aftertaste of his poison of choice. Both of his poisons. The elevator creeps up through floors and he wonders if maybe the chemicals in coffee somehow neutralize the chemicals in bourbon. He'll have to ask Abby.

Black coffee makes him gag. Guess he's not ready for the big leagues after all.

* * *

"What'd you say to her, Boss?" Tony asks weeks later, shaking out his fingers.

"You really wanna know, DiNozzo?"

He thinks about it, and decides he doesn't really care. Joe at the security desk told him that Clare Connell fled the building, muttering about bastards and wanting cigarettes. Breaking your potential supervisor's hand at the first interview isn't a testament of your strength of character. It's just bad manners.

"Guess everybody's flappable."

He tries not to think of Ziva as he says it. Angry eyes and tight mouth and a hint of tears. The memory doesn't have the sting that it used to, though given the chance to give her a piece of his mind...

Probably best not to dwell on it.

The days trickle by in a swirl of bodies and crime scenes and paperwork. The chair remains empty.

* * *

He waits in the line at the coffee shop one morning, a fistful of sugars and spoons and flavourings in his hand. Unable to break the habit of surveying the environment around him for potential threats, he counts the number of people in the shop (six, it's still pretty early), makes a mental note of the cars parked outside and checks out the exits.

He's suddenly aware that it's become a habit of detached assessment rather than a way of scouting for potentially promising girls. An indignant voice protests ("_women, Tony"_) inside his head, and he grins.

_Sorry, Kate_.

"Excuse me?" a female voice that is_ definitely_ not Kate says curiously, and his automatic grin is pure vintage DiNozzo. "Did you say something?"

She's small and blonde and busty. Maybe thirty, thirty-one, but untarnished by the horrors of the world. Her name is – _of all things_ – Katherine; and for a minute he thinks about telling her a story about his dead partner and phone sex, but he doesn't. He's all about new beginnings these days. Instead, a joke rolls easily from his tongue, and she laughs like it's the funniest thing she's heard all day.

He can't help but laugh with her.

In return, he buys her coffee, and steps up to the counter to ask Jerry the ageing barista to hold his first order for a little while. They sit at a table by the window and he says all the right things and thinks with not a small dose of irony that the drought has finally broken.

Tony tries very hard not to think of the storm that preceded the rain.

In the spirit of healing and because it's what you do in these situations, he asks for her number. Moments later, there are round blue letters scrawled on the back of his hand (because wouldn't you know it, he's left his phone in the squad room), and for a moment he feels like he's hitched a ride on the DeLorean and gone back a few years.

"You a movie fan, Katherine?" he asks quickly, and if she sees his sudden thoughtful expression she doesn't comment on it.

"It depends on the company," she says coyly, twirling a strand of hair around her finger and leaning closer. "There's a new spy thriller out, a pair of CIA agents pretending to be husband and wife to lure out a criminal. We could – "

Tony barely hears the rest. He makes all the right noises and even manages a couple of lame jokes, but his heart isn't in it. He makes an excuse and promises to call, and she looks at him steadily. Her eyes are suddenly sharp and he thinks that his mask must be slipping.

"I'm a big girl, Tony. If you're not interested, just say so."

He's impressed despite himself. Thinks briefly of trying again with a lie, but decides in the end that he should start being honest, as penance for all the times he's used a line to worm his way out of such a situation.

"Let me guess," she says after a beat, "Bad breakup?"

Well, in a way it's the truth.

"You could say that," he replies, glad of the free pass. He nods in Jerry's direction and receives a nod and three fingers extended in return. Three minutes. "Hey, I gotta get back to work. Thanks for the chat. And… "

"I get it. Thanks for not being an asshole," Katherine says lightly, running her finger around the rim of her cup to catch the last few sprinkles of chocolate. Tony smiles at the odd gesture – she doesn't need to impress him anymore, it seems – and leaves with his tray of coffee.

It's only when he's on his way back to the Navy Yard that he realises that he can't remember what Kate's voice sounded like.

* * *

She has pixie-short hair and laughing eyes, and she edges close to him in the darkened room and talks about being tested. It's then that he realizes that maybe all of this is _his_ test, and maybe he's failing it right now. He leaves without looking back, but doesn't understand why until he's handing the folder to Gibbs, striped rainbow from the MTAC screen.

_Likes to live on the edge. Take risks. Pretty eyes. Thinks NCIS might offer some new challenges. _

He can't put the pieces together for a moment when he sees Stan Burley on the screen, and then he does. His mouth dries out instantly. He wants to choke on the sand that seems to fill his throat. Gibbs the unflappable, Gibbs with the ice eyes and stoic heart is putting out feelers in the African desert, looking for…

Well, his boss is pretty chummy with Vance these days. Closed doors and meaningful glances and time alone in MTAC without him and McGee. Tony wonders if the two of them have something going on that they're not sharing. He wouldn't be surprised. Vance is the master of secrets – the king to his court jester – and Gibbs is practically a functional mute.

He dares to ask – casually, he thinks – about the identity of the woman captive. He's almost surprised that his voice doesn't crack or waver. His heart pounds in his chest.

Gibbs raises an eyebrow and Tony knows that he's as transparent as glass. His boss is a human lie detector, powered by black coffee and bourbon and something else that Tony is slowly beginning to understand.

"What kind of failure?"

"The kind with casualties."

A warning, or a reality check, or both? There are already too many casualties from Mossad's (sometimes blatantly illegal) fuckups. Sending a Mossad agent to carry out an unsanctioned operation on American soil that lead to the death of an American agent is not something one jokes about over cups of tea. Really, he wonders sometimes how Eli David still _has_ a job.

Captain Hastings leaves in disgust when she hears him and Abby and McGee talking about hacking, and it's probably for the best, because they have all been raised by Gibbs, and Gibbs has never played by any rules except his own.

Strike Two.

* * *

Life barrels on like a runaway train, and before Tony knows it he's moved from being hog-tied and dragged along the rails at the back to somewhere comfortable in the second class cabin. It's no Orient Express, but then he's no Poirot. He'll take what he can get on the regular Amtrak service, thanks.

They try the usual ways first. Matching cell records from the LA terrorist cell's phones to locations in the Horn of Africa, which according to McGee is where 'Nick' was selling his weapons. Nothing. Abby and McGee talk endlessly about codes and supply chains and what Tony classes as 'geek things'. Little details in big words. Even more nothing. In fact, 'nothing' is pretty much the theme of the week.

"It's always in the last place you look," McGee muses late one night, and before Tony can reach over to make contact with his head a slap rings through the air, closely followed by a yelp. Abby doesn't turn from the computer screen, but she does snort in a most unladylike manner.

"Timmy, if you don't want your head to hurt, you really shouldn't slap yourself."

McGee frowns and rubs the back of his head. "It's been awhile. I forgot how much it stung," he says ruefully, and for that he gets another slap from Tony. "What was that one for?"

"Consolidation, Mr MIT," Tony says with a grin, "If there are people that do that – keep looking when they've found what they were looking for – then there are probably people who need a little extra help revising old lessons. And wouldn't you know it, they're probably the same people. What a coinciden-- _Gah_!"

Abby smiles wolfishly and blows on her hand like it's a clichéd smoking gun barrel from an old gangster movie. "Consolidation, Very Special Agent DiNozzo. Do I need to remind you exactly what keeps you in Zegna suits and me in black lipstick and bowling shoes and Tim… well, he's a special case-"

"Exactly what I've always said," Tony interrupts, taking a step back when she whirls on him. She's more subdued and harder to read these days, and her current expression could very well be '_I'm amused by your witty banter but trying not to show it'_. After all, she'll always stick up for McGee over him. Part and parcel of whatever complicated relationship they've got going on.

It could also be '_I'm about to do that thing that I threatened with the hydrochloric acid and a Foley catheter.' _He's not taking any chances with Tony Junior, thank you very much.

"People who spend their lives looking for answers beyond answers and therefore have no right to pass judgement say what?" Abby says quickly, the words running together in a jumbled mess. Tony blinks.

"What?" he and McGee ask in simultaneous confusion. Abby shifts her weight with a silvery jingle of chains and smiles, satisfied.

"Exactly."

There's a joke there somewhere, but he missed it.

She turns around and starts typing at a speed unfit for human fingers. Robot Abby, a cyborg powered by highly caffeinated fruity beverage; who stomps all over generally accepted stereotypes with her boot-clad feet and probably recharges overnight in a coffin.

He wonders how he'd describe the people he worked with if he was ever asked. He'd probably go with some kind of movie allusion. It's what he does. Well, not all that he does, but part of it.

Tin Man. The Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion and Dorothy. Ducky and Abby and Vance, because like many things, the simile starts to break down once you get past the main characters and start to look too closely at the special effects.

_Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain._

McGee leans a little closer to Tony and opens his mouth, watching Abby's back carefully. Tony shakes his head with the barest of movements.

"If you value your prober, Probie, now is really not the time."

* * *

Everybody deals in their own unique way. Sometimes there are shared elements, common ground, and sometimes you have to find your own method of making sense of the madness.

So… you get hurt, and you carry the hurt, and before you know it you're flipping through real estate ads for a house with a basement and wondering where one gets the carpentry know-how to build a boat. Maybe not a boat. Tony thinks he'll start small. After all, everybody starts somewhere. Even Gibbs himself didn't just spring fully-formed into being.

Maybe a bird house that he can fill with seed.

Then he remembers that he hates birds, and that house prices in Washington are ridiculous.

Tony buys a model airplane kit instead, builds it in one long stretch of piecing and gluing and painting. His hands fall into the familiar rhythm like he's been doing it all his life.

Once upon a time – almost thirty years ago, give or take a few - he hung similar models from his ceiling with pushpins, having no-one to tell him about gravity and anchoring and inevitability, or that what goes up must always come down. He woke up in complete darkness and thought he was under attack, missiles dropping from the ceiling and crashing onto his blankets. By the time his mother burst through the door, eyes wide and wild and roaming, the floor was scattered with ruined aircraft and Tony was grinning with the adrenaline rush of destruction. The celebratory thrill of defending oneself against an unknown enemy – no matter how small the victory.

He gained a few lashes for making his mother worry (read: waking his father up with the noise) and learned an important lesson about gravity.

Everything falls eventually, no matter how hard you push in the pin. It's what you do in the aftermath that really counts. Fight or ignore… or flee?

With this in mind, Tony studies the finished product for a long moment, gleaming red white and blue under the lights above the breakfast bar. He could try to hang it from the ceiling – now that he's not seven, and hence somewhat wiser about screws and anchors and whatnot – but it seems out of place in the room somehow. He props it on top of the TV cabinet, blue and white smeared on his hands from the paint that has not yet fully dried.

The water in the kitchen sink is icy and clear. Blue and white smear and bleed down toward his fingertips to disappear slowly into the garbage disposal. The smallest smudge remains on the handle of the tap. Tony looks at it, considering, and then shrugs and turns away.

The little plane catches his eye. He crosses the room in long sure steps and raises his fist to crush it like Gibbs burns his boats. He hesitates at the last second, unable to follow through without really knowing why.

Everyone deals in their own way, and he's not Gibbs and right now he doesn't want to be.

On a whim, he digs in his pocket for his cell, scrolls down to 'K' and hits the button.

"As a Federal Agent," he says when the call connects. "I feel it's my job to warn you that a crime is about to be committed." Stupid, Tony, stupid. It doesn't even make any sense. He's seriously off his game these days.

Katherine just laughs indulgently. "Really, Tony. And what might that be?"

"Oh, no need to panic. It's just… well, there's a Porterhouse somewhere in the Washington area that's just begging to be murdered tonight. Care to join me?"

* * *

And then the train runs off the track. It's not at all like in the movies. They're not staring out the window in horror, watching the carriage approach the broken bridge at a speed that makes your eyes water. They're not even given a warning. If it were a movie, the music would swell ominously and it would be the audience's cue to point at the screen and mutter.

_See that one? That guy there? He doesn't know it yet, but someone's set a bomb on the tracks ahead and he's about to be blown to smithereens. And what's he doing? Listening to nursery rhymes with a puzzled smile. _

_Fool._

But life is not a movie. There's no director to call cut and very rarely do you get a second take. And the worst thing of all, you don't get your lines in advance, so you have no idea what's coming – and even when the clues are there, most of the time you miss the meaning. Because hindsight is cruel like that.

One minute Abby and McGee are singing and he's wondering whether to join in or slap them (it's been a long time, but it's what Gibbs would have done and after all, everyone always says he's so much like Gibbs). His fingers twitch at his side with the effort of not touching the spot on the back of his head.

They talk about goats and he pretends he gets it. The mention of Eli David makes him clench his jaw.

The next… oh, the next. There are no words for what he feels in that moment after Gibbs says what they've all been afraid to think.

Later, he rages at Gibbs for not breaking it to them more gently, and then it dawns on him that no matter the means, the end is always going to be the same. Do you rip off the band-aid with a flick of your wrist or do you peel it one hair at a time from your skin?

Thing about band-aids is, they're designed as a cover up. They protect the wound from dirt and grit and further injury, but they also shield it from open air. When you take it off, there's still going to be a wound underneath, regardless of the method.

He punches the button for the elevator so hard the skin on his knuckles splits like a ripe peach. Blood pools and drips and smears on his hand.

It seems fitting. After each death, there has been blood. Blood and brains on his face and in his hair, remnants of Kate spattered on his clothes like a gruesome imitation of a Jackson Pollock painting. Art appreciation for your average psychopath. Blood in his mouth, frozen open in retort. Bitter copper on his tongue.

Blood rushing through weakened, diseased veins as Custer eyes the door and prepares for her last stand. Blood; soaking the air of a faraway diner, blood cooling, pooling on a concrete floor.

A secret door closing with a slam that was dwarfed in the explosion seconds later, the unmistakeable sound of a person just… ceasing to be. Blood and chalky bone and remnants in jars, stains on concrete floors that have not disappeared even years later. The MCRT did not scrape the remains from the floor, did not have to separate terrorist from hero.

Ducky did, because that is what Ducky does – one last act of kindness for the people in their lives that they cannot save. Sparing them the indignity of a stranger looking down on them naked and cold and framed by gleaming steel.

All except one.

He touches a fingertip to ruby red and without really thinking about what he is doing, brings it to his mouth. Bitter copper on his tongue. He is furious suddenly, at her and at himself and at everyone who had a hand in her death.

"Tony," Abby says quietly from behind him, and he draws back from the uncooperative elevator button and braces his hot palms against the cool of the panel. "Don't."

"What kind of fool sends a team of Mossad officers to a camp in Africa, on a ship that belongs to the terrorists they're tracking in the first place?" Tony rages, purposely ignoring her soft plea. "What, Director David thought that his mighty word – or maybe his mighty bribe – would be good enough for the Damocles crew _not_ to blow his team's cover? Arrogant son of a bitch that he is."

"You know what they say about assumptions, DiNozzo," Gibbs says sharply before Abby can reply, his voice cutting through the last shredded strands of Tony's control. He punches the button again and looks blankly at the streak of blood that remains.

Finally, thankfully, the doors open and he stumbles inside without looking back. Boots strike the floor behind him and stop. Gibbs mutters something that Tony can't hear through the pounding in his ears and Abby sighs low and sorrowful.

_There were no survivors_.

The doors slide closed with a hiss and the elevator echoes with the ragged breathing of someone who's just felt the bridge disappear from under him and is freefalling, waiting to hit the ground. Tony laughs wildly in the small space, and the reflected madness of it makes him cringe and cover his ears.

_Therewerenosurvivors. _

He hits the emergency button for the first time in weeks. To hell with the basement geeks and their praise for Gibbs' record non-hogging of the elevator. To hell with everything and everyone, at least for these few minutes when he can rip off the mask and give in to the churning in his gut and just. not. care. what anyone thinks of him.

_There. _

_Were. _

_No. _

_Survivors_.

* * *

That night, Tony goes home and grinds the model plane into splinters with furious flying fists. Flakes of paint float lazily through the air and settle on the carpet like the aftermath of a bomb blast. The neighbours bang on the shared wall at the noise he's making and he puts his fist through it in response.

He crawls into bed fully dressed, bottle clutched in his hand like a child and drinks himself into a stupor that almost counts as sleep, except that every time he closes his eyes he sees her face, suspended above him. Angry eyes and tight mouth and a hint of tears. _You left me_, she says over and over in a broken voice_, you flew away and I died_.

Tony knows that's not right, that it was Ziva's choice to stay behind, that he's not the only guilty party here. He knows it's not right like he knew he couldn't have saved Kate or Paula or his mother, or stopped Jenny from going to that diner on a lonely stretch of highway to find answers – and to die.

Tony knows this, but logic and reason and common sense have no place in a world of tearstained sheets and bloody knuckles and regrets.

* * *

_Coming soon: Koalas on submarines and truth in little glass bottles and dusty rooms with dirty windows. AKA: The second half of ToC. _

_If you liked this, that is._

_Reviews rock my world._ :)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay. Got caught up watching _Reunion_ and muttering to myself. Anyone else call writer!fail on Ziva's 'It's been a long _three _months' speech? Anyone? .....

**Disclaimer**: NCIS characters etc belong to Bellisarius and Co. If I owned them, I'd do things differently. (Oh wait, I already am... huh)

Any facts that sounds even remotely smart (i.e. medical jargon) probably came from Google, Wikipedia or similar. Some quotes taken from episode, but for the most part the theories/rationalizations are my own. Don't shoot.

Oh, and if you were as intrigued by Gibbs' 'koala on a submarine' line as I was, go hunt down _'The Q Word'_ for my take on what happened. It was going to be included here, but as always my 'tiny' idea blew up faster than a tin can in a microwave oven. Not that I'm, uh, shamelessly self-promoting or anything. Nope. None of that here.

Hope you enjoy.

* * *

The days immediately after Gibbs drops the bomb are like one big lost-in-translation frenzy.

It reminds Tony of a time years ago – Kate's first year on the team, in fact – when he was flying-tackled by an aggressive suspect and woke up with the headache from hell and the concussion-induced belief that everyone was not actually talking to him, but singing various lines from Modern Major General.

Tony doesn't know _any_ cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. Not then, not now. McGee might, but McGee doesn't say anything he can understand these days, or at least not with his voice. Their mouths move like badly dubbed kung fu movies and his internal Babelfish must have been damaged by the nuclear blast of _therewerenosurvivors_, because he can't seem to decipher it and usually he's pretty good at puzzles.

McGee speaks Geek, Ducky speaks M.D, and Palmer speaks Awkward. Abby's sentences run together like a particularly yappy Chihuahua… with ADHD…. on acid. Vance speaks Smug, and sometimes he speaks General, but it's hard to understand anything with the strong Toothpick drawl.

They watch him with wary eyes, bystanders unable to resist the blue and red flash of sirens even though they know they might see bodies and blood if they look too closely.

Except for Gibbs. Then and now, Gibbs always says exactly what he means.

"Grab your gear."

It penetrates like Pavlov's bell and the body responds accordingly. Conditional reflexes based on previous experiences, because this at least – this _grahhb yor geer_ – is something Tony understands.

Victims speak Death or Hurt or Fear and suspects speak Fear or Guilt or Liar and these are things that Tony understands too, things that he can deal with as long as they're not directly related to him, because these strangers don't look at him like he's a bomb just waiting to go off.

Tony becomes a master at Gibbs!Stare, version 2.0. Maybe even better at it than the original. He tries it on Palmer and the lab assistant blushes and drops a tray of surgical instruments. McGee stumbles on his words. Ducky clucks his tongue, pushes up his face shield with a crackle of plastic and offers him tea.

New cup, new cup, move along, move along.

He tries it on Abby once when she pushes too hard, and she looks at him with a raised eyebrow and tells him that he'd better watch out or he'll start turning prematurely grey and foregoing all attempts at social pleasantries. Her eyes are huge and dark and filled with something raw. Tony presses a kiss to her forehead and walks away.

He uses it on Gibbs, and Gibbs looks at him evenly for a long moment and then smacks him upside the head. Walks away without a word, which is nice, because if he had to deal with Gibbs' cutting brand of sympathy he might just crack and shoot something.

"Grab your gear."

They march on like wounded soldiers, bandaged and bitter and feeling phantom pain in limbs they would swear weren't missing at all, except for the empty space where a hand or a foot or an eye used to be.

Almost two months Ziva's been dead; cold and rotting under the sea while he's been wishing that she was here so he could ask her what the hell she was thinking, why she couldn't just trust him enough to let him help. Maybe even ask if all that talk about soul mates and pretending was for a reason, once upon a time. Because Ziva is – _was_ – nothing if not six foot of pure measured self-control in a five foot seven package.

She never does – _did_ – anything without a reason, and whether that's because of training or bitter experience, he never really asked. There's a lot he never asked.

Guess he'll never know.

* * *

"Some idiot snuck a koala onto a submarine," he hears one morning, and blinks, because it's Gibbs' voice but Gibbs doesn't joke around like that.

On his right, McGee makes a strangled sound that might be a snort.

"Something funny, McGee?" Gibbs asks, and for the first time in days Tony shakes off the fog and looks at his Boss in disbelief. "DiNozzo. Nice of you to join us. Problem?"

"No, Boss," he replies, ignoring McGee's surprised expression. "It's just… You made a joke. You sure you don't want to sit down? It's always painful the first time."

"Grab your gear," Gibbs says sharply, but he doesn't quite turn quickly enough to hide his smile. McGee and Tony look at one another, and he's struck by how much older the junior agent looks. They fall in behind Gibbs as he heads for the elevator.

"It's a nice change from dead petty officers," McGee says lightly, his eyes darting between Tony and Gibbs' back as though he's not entirely sure what just happened. "Besides, how much trouble can one cute little bear be?"

Hours later, the slap whistles through the air for the almost-forgotten remark. Tony would smile at McGee's wince, but the angry scratches on his arm sting from the antiseptic and his ears are filled with the screaming of the frightened animal.

He sees dark eyes shining at him whenever he closes his.

* * *

The days pass and the anger fades from the front of his mind slowly, but it's easier somehow to just let the world fly by, slip into autopilot and let someone else direct the show.

Grab your gear.

_Grabyourgear_.

It's easier.

And then one day, it's not.

It's the first time in a long time – maybe ever – that he's openly, blatantly defied Gibbs. The world comes to a standstill and he can hardly believe what he's just said. McGee holds his breath. Tony breathes slowly through his nose, willing himself to keep his head. If he's learnt anything in the past near decade with Gibbs, it's that threats and anger don't work well on the man. He's seen worse, and he's dealt out worse, and he's mostly immune to it.

Though everyone has their breaking point.

Tony's not sure what surprises him the most – the fact that he said it, or the fact that Gibbs is looking at him with an expression that is breathtakingly close to pride. There's no surprise in the ice blue eyes, and it's then that Tony realises that somehow, Gibbs has been waiting for this moment since the day he ripped off that bandaid.

_There were no survivors. _

And there aren't, and there's nothing they can do to change that, but there are still people to blame. People to hate. People to hurt. So he makes his case, and it turns out that vengeance is sufficient enough spark to light the fuse again, to blow him back into the world.

In a way, he thinks that if Ziva were here, she'd be proud.

* * *

"...and we leave in two days."

Abby stares at them for so long that Tony wonders if she's gone into some kind of fugue state. He wants to snap his fingers in front of her face, but given what they've just told her, she might bite them off and then convince Ducky to re-attach them. Slowly, and without anaesthetic.

Beside him, McGee shifts uncomfortably under the weight of her leaden gaze.

"I must have been standing way too close to the speakers last night," she says slowly after awhile, picking up the giant cup of Caf-Pow and shaking it, "Because I thought I just heard you say that you _volunteered yourselves_ for a mission to Africa. But I must have misheard, because there's no way you would – "

"Well, actually – "

"Shut up, McGee!" Abby bites out, snapping like a wounded dog. They both take a step back as she starts to pace. "Just _shut up_, because if you're not going to tell me that I'm going deaf, i-if you're telling me that one death wasn't enough and now you're going off to the middle of the desert on some messed up revenge kick, I don't want to hear it."

She's never looked so beautiful as she does right now, fighting against the inevitable with fierce eyes and whipping hair, her hands spelling out all the things she can't find the words to say out loud.

Tony wishes he'd learnt to speak her language like Gibbs had. Her hands move like poetry, and he could use a little poetry in his life. He only knows a few signs, and none of them will make a difference to her anger.

Her voice, on the other hand, is approaching levels that only bats and canines can hear.

"Are you trying to send me completely insane? No, really, is it Make Abby Crazy week, because some advance warning would have been nice." Her voice cracks and breaks. "I would have kept the straitjacket."

"Abby," McGee says calmly, ever the peacemaker. "We – "

"I swear to _God_, McGee, if you say one more word I will kick your ass into next week with the tricks that I never told you Ziva taught me. And you made me say G-o-d, so you should know that I mean that."

"Abbs," Tony says with a frown, "What did you think was going to happen? We tracked Saleem to the camp, and convinced Vance to give us the green light. This is what we wanted."

"That's what you're supposed to do, DiNozzo." And then he knows just how mad she is, because she never calls him by his last name, and she never _ever_ spits it out like it's poison. "You're investigators. You investigate stuff. Being an field agent and being a – a _SEAL_ – is not the same thing, no matter how many stupid action movies you can quote."

"Abby," Gibbs intervenes, and they whirl as one because nobody heard the elevator.

"And _you_," she half-yells at Gibbs, her hands flailing madly, "You have _glasses_!" Gibbs blinks, but she's not done. "You have glasses, and bad eyesight, and it's been _years_ since you were a Corps sniper, and I thought you got over your mid-life crisis thing when you were dating the woman with the convertible, and…" She deflates visibly before their eyes and turns away.

Even Gibbs is lost for words for what seems like hours. "Abby," he says finally, simply, in the gentle voice he reserves just for her. "I'll bring them back to you."

She sniffles petulantly as she turns, tears streaking down her face. Tries one last time. "Can't you send someone else to do it?" It's a pointless question, and from the look on her face she knows it and is horrified that she said it aloud.

Tony's not sure he could send someone else to possibly die in his place, not for something that – if he's being honest with himself – is less about stopping a terrorist from spreading more evil and mostly about getting payback for evil that's already been done.

Somehow, without him even noticing, Saleem has become his Ari.

Tony tries to pinpoint when exactly his life turned into Groundhog Day.

He wonders if this was what Gibbs felt after Kate's death when he was hell-bent on pursuing Ari, on getting revenge. He wonders if Gibbs had dreams about watching Ari's blood run red across the concrete floor and whether when he woke up, he classed them as dreams or nightmares.

As if she's read his mind using the super voodoo powers she sometimes jokes about, Abby says, "I know you've killed crazy terrorists before, Gibbs, but it's different this time. This guy, he's not Ari."

Gibbs' face twists for a split-second and Tony can't help but stare as he closes the door to the lab, twists the lock and walks forward until he's standing in between them all, the centre of their fucked-up little triangle. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.

"I didn't kill Ari Haswari," Gibbs says, the words falling like birds shot out of mid-air. "Ziva did."

It's probably not the best way to inspire Abby's confidence in his terrorist-shooting skills, but it certainly is efficient in rendering her speechless. She gapes, mouth flapping like a stranded fish, and McGee looks like someone's just pulled the rug out from under him. Gibbs looks like he wants to claw the memory out of his head, and Tony doesn't quite understand why.

Then Gibbs begins to speak, and within seconds Tony is wishing he was deaf.

* * *

There are plans to be made, and briefings, and things to tie up before anyone's going anywhere. Such is life in a government agency, where more time is spent filling in endless forms than actually carrying out the mission the forms don't really describe in the first place.

Tony updates his will, leaving what little he has not to the family he was born into – they have enough, and if they can't share then he's sure as hell not going to – but to the family he's made for himself. McGee spends a lot of time down in Abby's lab and if Gibbs disapproves of this, he never says a word. For his part, Gibbs spends a lot of time in the Director's office, which just gives weight to the thought that there's something else going on here that Tony's not being told about. A bigger picture.

The plan is really not a plan at all, as it turns out. They can prepare all they like, talk strategy and tactics and response times until they're blue in the face, but the reality is that Tony and McGee are more or less going in blind.

"That's what reconnaissance is all about, DiNozzo," Vance says when Tony tires of the endless chatter and points this fact out. "You want to back out, now would be a good time." Tony doesn't.

Vance doesn't look terribly concerned about this possibility, but by now Tony's learnt to read the man a little better and he's pretty sure it's a vote of confidence in his abilities rather than another reason to add to the now-mostly-defunct list of '_why DiNozzo's a screwup_.'

He allows himself a moment to entertain the thought of standing at the podium accepting an award that _doesn't_ have Gibbs' name on it. Just one moment, and then Vance turns to Gibbs and says something about tactical response scenarios and the moment passes.

Tony starts to believe that they might be able to keep their promise to Abby.

* * *

The day before they are scheduled to leave, Vance calls him into the office, sits him down, and proceeds to tell him about interrogation. He doesn't use the word 'torture' as such, but it hangs in the air anyway.

"Hey, if I can stand to sit through the remake of _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_," Tony says with a grin, though his mind is racing, "I can outlast anything."

And it says something _else_ about Vance that he lets him play the clown, finally realizing that it's not about Tony not getting the point or failing to see the seriousness of the situation. It's about dealing with the horror of the idea however he can in the immediate aftermath, until he can sit down and process things in his own way.

So Vance smiles – _smiles!_ – and says that in his mind, _Planet of the Apes_ trumps _The Invasion_ on any worst remake list, then shakes his hand.

"Come home safely, DiNozzo, and we'll discuss your future at NCIS," he says meaningfully with that same smile, and suddenly Tony realizes that maybe Vance is not the enemy after all.

* * *

"Anthony, my dear boy," Ducky says warmly as he strides through the automatic doors of Autopsy later that day. "So fortuitous that you should walk through my door. I was just about to call and ask if you had time to spare for a cup of tea."

Tony would much prefer something with proof, but he agrees anyway because that's what you do for family sometimes. You let them give you what they think you need.

Besides, it wouldn't do to get caught drinking on the job and removed from the not-so-secret mission before it even starts.

Ducky goes through the ritual of making tea as Tony watches silently, for once not needing to fill the space with meaningless chatter. The time for that has passed, and it's not necessarily what he wants to be remembered for.

Not that he's thinking only of the worst, but after more than a decade in law enforcement, a little bit of pragmatism has to rub off on a person.

Still, he doesn't quite know where to begin.

"Something on your mind?" Ducky asks lightly, setting two steaming mugs on a silver table that serves alternately as an instrument holder and the world's most grotesque tea trolley. Tony picks up the cup and lets the heat radiate though his skin.

"True Lies," he says by way of explanation, and something in Ducky's face flickers and is still. "See, I just came from the Director's office, and he was trying to – " Scare him? Warn him? " – tell me about, uh, certain methods that terrorists might use to get information from hostages. And I kept thinking of Arnie, but you know what they say…" He takes a sip and then grins. "You can't believe everything you see in the movies."

"Ah," Ducky says thoughtfully, his brow creased. "Sodium pentathol, then. Or to use the commonly coined phrase – truth serum."

"Yeah."

"My experience is with the dead, Tony," Ducky says gently, "And it is not often that the dead tell lies. However," and Tony perks up, "There_ is_ someone who might be able to shed more light on this situation." There's a crash and a curse from inside the storeroom, and Ducky shakes his head indulgently. "Mr Palmer?"

The storeroom door swings open. "Sorry, Dr Mallard, the tray just – oh, hey Tony."

"Mr Palmer, if you have a moment, Tony has a question that might be nearer to your area of expertise than mine." Jimmy's eyes light up and he hurries over eagerly.

"I'm no expert, Tony, but I'll help wherever I can."

"Sodium – what was it – _pentathol_. Truth serum. Know anything about that?"

"Actually, I wrote a paper on it not long ago." Jimmy pushes his glasses up further on his nose, thinking. "Sodium thiopental. A drug of the barbiturate class. Psychologists believe that because lying requires more complex higher cortical functions than telling the truth, giving the drug to…"

"Phys ed major, Jimmy. Dumb it down."

He blushes. "Sorry. Uh, giving the drug to unwilling subjects may cause a suppression of these functions and result in the compulsion to tell the truth. In short – the person feels the urge to talk without restraint, and according to popular belief, they feel they are unable to lie."

"Sounds like the world's biggest barrel of laughs," Tony says easily, trying not to wince. "So if they shoot me up, the filter between my brain and my mouth disappears, huh?" He thinks about it for a minute. "Well, that's nothing new."

Ducky and Palmer both smile a little at his attempt at humour. Palmer opens his mouth to continue, doubt etched across his seemingly innocent face.

"Actually, a lot of the drug's effects are based on the subject's mistaken belief that they can't lie."

Tony leans forward, liking the sound of that. "Mistaken how?"

"Uh – well, my paper was about the effects of the drug on the GABA receptors in the brain and spinal cord, not on the specific…" Tony levels him with a watered-down DiNozzo stare. Wouldn't do to have him all stammering and flustered, after all.

To Tony's grudging approval, Palmer continues unfazed. He's in his element. "From a mostly non-medical standpoint, I believe it_ is_ possible to lie under the influences of thiopental. The person would either need to have a well-practiced false story firmly entrenched in his memory, or be a very good liar."

There's no accusation in his voice, no inflection at all really. Just a statement of fact.

"Most interesting, Mr Palmer," Ducky says, sipping from his cup. Tony follows suit, thinking about what he's just heard. Never hurts to be prepared.

"Was there… is there anything else you need?" Jimmy asks, eager to please as always. Tony smiles at him genuinely, thinking that if – _when_ – they get back, he'll never refer to the well-meaning assistant as 'the autopsy gremlin' again.

Or at least not as often as he used to.

"Thanks, Agent Blacklung," he says easily, draining his mug and standing. Palmer blushes, a delighted grin spreading over his face. "And hey…" He suddenly can't think of anything to say. "I'll bring you back some sand, or an African princess or something."

"Sure, Tony." He returns to the storeroom and Ducky and Tony are alone again, or as alone as one can be with corpses waiting silently behind steel doors.

"Be safe, Tony," Ducky says simply, grasping his hand.

"No African princess for you, Ducky?"

The medical examiner laughs heartily despite the gravity of the situation. "Oh, I could tell you stories that would make your toes curl, dear boy." Tony can't quite hide his shudder. "Perhaps we shall save that conversation for another day."

"Something to look forward to, I'm sure," Tony shoots back as he heads towards the doors. "Keep an eye on Abby for us," he says as they slide open. "She's a little – "

"Yes, I had noticed," Ducky agrees with a sigh. "She is somewhat overwrought about the whole situation, isn't she. I suppose it is not without reason. Still, I shall do my best to keep her from worrying herself to… distraction."

"You'll keep, Doctor Mallard," Tony says as the doors close behind him.

He's already trying to plot out a believable cover story as the elevator moves through the floors. He was never a Boy Scout, but it can't hurt to be prepared.

Besides, after all his experience with women, he's an _excellent_ liar.

* * *

"What, no air-con?" he grouses when they arrive in Somalia, looking at the poor excuse for a vehicle they've been assigned. "Is this thing even roadworthy?" He kicks a tire and hopes he covered his wince quickly enough.

"I'm guessing that they save the good cars for the missions when they don't expect them to be burnt and pillaged," McGee says casually, though the twitch at the corner of his mouth gives him away. "When do we head out?"

Tony looks at the sun for a long considered moment, then gives in and looks at his watch. "Couple of hours yet," he says a touch impatiently. Gibbs has disappeared somewhere with little more than a nod as a not-quite-goodbye, and other than a few random personnel they're mostly alone. "Make sure you visit the head before we go, Timmy. I'm pretty sure there are no gas stations where we're going."

"And that would be where, exactly?"

"Well, if my finely-honed instincts serve me correctly," Tony begins jovially, then sighs and looks at the sparse desert around him. "Hell on Earth."

Tim stares at him for a minute as the wind whips sand around them both. "Anyone ever tell you you'd make a shitty motivational speaker?"

"Nope. Mostly they just tell me to shut the hell up."

They laugh together before falling back into an awkward silence.

"Tony?" McGee says a short time later, "Do you think –"

"Not very often," Tony jokes, "It hurts my brain." He's fairly sure he knows where this is going, and less sure that he wants to talk about it, but…

That's what you do for family.

McGee's struggling. "Do you think Ziva would… would she approve?"

"Are you kidding, Tim?" Tony says, because of all the possible questions, this is something that he _is_ sure of. "The opportunity for unadulterated violence, terrorist smackdown and bloodshed? She'd be the first one in the door."

"Okay then."

"Yeah."

It doesn't make what they're about to do any less insane, but in a strange way it helps.

* * *

Palmer never said it would burn like this. Maybe he forgot to mention it, maybe he simply didn't know. Tony's not sure which he'd prefer, and it doesn't matter really because the end result is still the same.

There's a tiny spot of blood in the crook of his elbow. No bigger than the head of a pin.

"Not only are you wrong, but you're wrong at the top of your voice." "

Dry lips and cracked split skin like a peach.

Tony is the master of smooth talking, the purveyor of white lies and misdirection, but fire and ice surge in his veins. Fire and ice and fear.

Window. Dust. One chair. No, two chairs. One empty, one full of Tony. Tied up and trying to keep his cool in the stifling heat of the room. McGee's supposedly unconscious body. One table. Syringes and tourniquets and truth in glass bottles. Keffiyeh stained with sweat and rage and death.

The hate burns worse than the drugs, worse than the sting of the beating he received, worse than the sight of McGee stretched limply on the floor.

Saleem asks him questions, baits and taunts and jeers, and Tony fights to stick to the script. It makes his muscles quiver almost uncontrollably, but not completely _beyond_ control. He clenches his jaw whether he is telling truth or lies or a combination of both, throwing the hunting dog off the scent, and Saleem narrows his eyes in frustration as he spins his tale.

"I don't care about your team. I don't care about my team."

If there was ever a time for an Oscar-worthy performance, now would be it. Best Script. Best Screenplay. Best gratuitous movie references. Accepting the award for Anthony DiNozzo is Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs. Because everything should come full circle eventually, right?

There's a window behind his head, but the glass is dusty in places, and Tony hopes to God that Gibbs wasn't lying when he said that he hadn't forgotten any of his sniper skills and that his glasses were only for reading.

Sandpaper lines his throat, scratchy and raw. He can't take his eyes off the Caf-Pow in Saleem's flask, partly because it's a reminder that he has to stick to the script, partly because his throat is so dry he'd sacrifice his entire DVD collection for a drink. Even if the caffeine would probably send him into some kind of shock, given his current state.

He'll never complain about the rain in Washington again, that's for sure.

Time loses all meaning, and he's not quite sure whether he's awake or dreaming or caught in some kind of funky fugue state. Sometimes there is just one ugly terrorist, sometimes there are three, and they dance around his head with wild mad eyes.

Palmer left out the part about the sodium.. whatever… being like one big stoner fantasy, though given his air of innocence, maybe he wouldn't know what that feels like. Hell, Tony only tried it a couple of times himself, back in college, because he was eager to fit in and curious, but he was also an athlete whose future depended on his ability to pee clean urine into jars.

Before his knee buckled and snapped and strained underneath him, that is. It's a funny thing, how your priorities can shift all of a sudden.

Saleem is angry. At himself, at Tony, who knows. He's got the gun, and he can be angry at whoever he wants. That's what happens when you have the gun. The canteen clatters against the stone wall and red liquid spills out, glistening sickly in the sunlight. Tony would lick it from the floor, given the chance.

Saleem storms out, McGee whispers, Tony blinks twice against the fuzziness clouding his vision and tells him to wait. There's angry shouting from somewhere outside the room, and he doesn't speak Terrorist but it sure doesn't sound like Saleem's berating the thug outside the door for drinking the last of the Chardonnay, either.

Terrorist hospitality leaves something to be desired. He wonders idly if there's some kind of tourist board he can complain to. _No chocolates on my pillow. Hell, no pillow at all. Wouldn't come back here if you paid me_.

Footsteps approach rapidly in staccato bursts of anger, and the keffiyeh swims back into his vision. Tony blinks, sure that when Saleem left the room he didn't have time to grow himself a whole extra set of arms and legs like some kind of… regenerating alien.

Though it would certainly cement the surrealism of this whole snafu if Saleem peeled off his face right about now.

He's barely had time to think of a suitable movie when his world grinds to a halt, because Saleem is raging and pacing and ripping black cloth from what is not in fact his alien conjoined twin, but a gaunt bound figure in a chair much like his and something stirs in his gut underneath the layers of fire and ice and _stick to the script, DiNozzo, just stick to the script._

And sweet mother of all that is holy, could he ever use an autocue machine in his line of sight right now. _What's my goddamn line_? He forgets everything they've rehearsed with the whip of a hood from a face.

_Fuck. _

Ziva stares back at him, beaten and bloody and broken, and yet somehow more breathtakingly beautiful than she's ever been. And Tony's seen a lot of beauty in his time. Blonde and red and blue and green and every variation in between.

And yet brown and brown never made his heart stutter in his chest quite like this.

This was not part of the plan. There's no script for this, and he's not sure what will happen if he goes off-book, but he's the master of improvising, the stand-up comedian of the Truth Serum Amphitheatre.

"So… how was your summer?"

Unsurprisingly, the audience doesn't laugh, but he's stuck on the stage with fire and ice in his veins and she looks at him with hopeless resigned eyes and tells him that she is ready to die and it's _all he can do_ to not groan out loud.

Oh, the beauty that men create and admire, and the damage that they cause with words and fists and things that he does not want to think about.

She is undeniably damaged, and he is burning, and she is still beautiful.

* * *

If you asked him later, he would not remember most of what he said to Ziva, or what she said to him. He would not remember all the things they did not – _could not_ – say. But that would be later, after the fact, in the future that he can't quite imagine now that the rules of the game have changed.

Now, in this moment when they are supposed to be deciding who lives and who dies, the words crowd and flood, hovering behind his clenched jaw, and Tony understands what Palmer was talking about, because he is most definitely feeling the urge to talk without restraint.

If he starts, he's not sure he'll be able to stop.

"Are you alright… McGee?" But her eyes remain on him as she asks, and in the pause he thinks he hears what she's unable to ask of him. It's a good thing really, because if she asked, he would have to tell her everything. Drugs or no drugs, she was always good at telling when he was lying.

Though once she stood proud and strong and now she is crushed and wilting like a flower ground under combat boots. Four months. Four months of…

Tony bites the inside of his mouth so hard he tastes blood on his tongue, because this he cannot deny. Ziva is gaunt and cowed and broken, but she is not _beaten_, and there is only one reason he can think of why a group of terrorists would transport a woman with them from camp to camp. For four_ months_.

Time shifts and fades, and behind his back he clenches his hands so hard he feels his fingernails splinter against the soft flesh of his palm.

"Ziva. Can you fight?"

Can she fight? He would slap his own head if his hands weren't bound. She can't even _stand_.

She just sits there not quite meeting his gaze, one solitary tear breaking free from the corner of her right eye and meandering down her cheek for all – well, for _him_ – to see. Can she fight? Probably not. Does she want to?

Tony doesn't want to think about that too hard. The more he thinks, the harder he has to clench his jaw against the words that spin and stick on the roof of his mouth like poison.

Saleem enters stage right, and it almost breaks Tony to see her beg for their lives, because in doing so she is begging for her death and that, that right there sends heat rocketing through his skull, because damned if he'll let another person he cares about die on his watch, no matter what they've done or suffered or said.

Finally, the shot whistles through the air, heralded by the tinkling of shattered glass. He wants to cheer but now is not the time for celebration. Miles to go.

And then Saleem is staring sightlessly at the filthy ceiling, blood pooling red on the concrete floor and inexplicably, Tony wonders if this is what Ziva saw when she knelt over her brother for the last time. She stares at the blood blankly as McGee cuts them free, and when Tony touches her shoulder she flinches and cowers like an animal.

Her eyes stare right through him as if she's not here at all, wild and dark with something he cannot describe without screaming like the damn koala they dragged from the USS Seawolf in a canvas bag.

They lift Ziva between them gently and try to ignore the ragged breath that escapes her at the movement. She is lighter than Tony ever thought possible and he winces at the feel of her ribs against his torso, the bones shifting in a way that tells him something's not right there, something's broken.

What _isn't?_

There's a shout and a scuffle and a sudden shot, and a figure crumples in the doorway before they have time to react. Ziva goes limp in their arms and they almost – _almost_ – buckle under her sudden dead weight, because they too are tired and beaten and a little broken.

"Ziva," McGee murmurs, shaking her with infinite care, and she comes to with a startled gasp. "Let's go." They've spent enough time in this room. Tony wishes there was time to burn it to the ground, but someone else can take care of that part. He's done.

Another shout. Another shot. Another body to add to their growing tally of things they didn't kill. Tony wants to laugh, but it's taking all of his energy just to stand upright. They turn the corner and Tony blinks.

There's a Wookie waiting at the end of the corridor.

A Wookie, or possibly a Swamp Thing. He blinks again and wonders if it would be a bad time to ask McGee if he's seeing monsters in his mind too. Not exactly something that will inspire confidence, hearing that your senior agent is in fact going completely bat-shit crazy.

"Let's go home," the Swamp-Wookie says gruffly, and for one horrible moment Tony wonders how it's speaking with Gibbs' voice and… _oh_. Right. Gibbs in sniper's desert camouflage. Or… whatever the correct term is that's just out of reach of Tony's obviously drug-addled brain.

Wait. Gibbs is here?

Gibbs standing at the end of the corridor. Tony looks back at the dead men on the floor. Looks at Gibbs. Tries to calculate the distance between here and the hilltop where they'd agreed to set up the sniper's nest. He fails miserably.

"Boss, you learn a new skill you didn't tell us about?" Tony says roughly, licking cracked lips with a bone-dry tongue. He'd give up his entire… well, he'd probably give up his left testicle for water at this point. It's useless to try and avoid the truth.

Even for people who haven't been doped up to the eyeballs with truth-inducing drugs.

"The hell you talking about, DiNozzo?"

"Oh, nothing. Crazy talk. Say, have you been reading McGee's copy of Harry Potter lately, because you were on the hill and then you were here and how did you snipe that second guy but then make it all the way down – "

The slap doesn't hurt at all in comparison to all the other aches, but he suspects Gibbs might not be putting his usual effort into it under the circumstances.

"Shutting up, Boss."

They step out into the sunlight and Gibbs studies them as they flinch from the glare. Unconscious, Ziva's head lolls like a marionette whose strings have been cut, brushing his shoulder with each step.

"Rule Number Nine, DiNozzo."

"Perimeter guards took my knife on the first day, Boss."

"Not my rules. Abby's. Always keep a spare."

Tony wants to say – _a spare what?_ – but his mouth won't cooperate, and then he gets it without having to ask. A spare _sniper_? Typical Gibbs.

Tony's knee threatens to give way. He misses a step and without a word Gibbs gathers Ziva in his arms, watching with wise eyes as Tim hooks Tony's arm around his shoulders and urges him forward.

They kick up the dirt behind them as they walk into the sunshine and towards safety.

* * *

Hours later, Tony struggles up from the darkness and for a terrifying moment he's sure he's in Hell.

It's hot and dark and sweaty and everything throbs, collecting behind his eyes in a mind-numbing whirlpool of fire and ache and noise. Someone's whimpering, ragged breaths and the wet sound of stifled tears. _Shh, shh_.

He wants to cover his ears but his traitorous hands disobey. He sinks back into oblivion without putting up a fight.

Much later, sounds start to filter in. A crackle of static and a rustle of fabric. Whispers rising and falling in the false darkness of not-really-night. He can taste the desert sand sour and angry on his tongue.

Someone coughs to his left, harsh and dry. The plane rattles and hums beneath him, and the hair on the back of his neck is prickling in a familiar way.

Somewhere on the floor near his feet, a shadow gathers and takes form, dark shining eyes staring at him steadily in the dim glow of the cabin. They flicker once, twice, and then disappear beneath heavy lids.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs says from somewhere on his right, low and rumbling and the one familiar thing about this unfamiliar world.

"Go back to sleep."

Tony wants to speak, but he's tired of lies and he's even more tired of truths and to be honest he's still not entirely sure where one ends and the other begins. His fingers tingle and he spares a glance for the figure on the stretcher, but closes his eyes obediently.

He's learnt something about orders in the last few months – namely, that sometimes people know what's good for you better than you do, and that you should listen to what they tell you. Sometimes.

He lets the darkness drag him down into its velvet embrace.

The plane rumbles on steadily towards home.

* * *

**A/N:** *cue curtain*

I'm purposely choosing not to write about the final scene of the premiere, since I don't think there's much more to say (and honestly, I thought the applause bit sucked all kinds of... _something_... so I don't really want to write about it). Forgive me?

Hope you enjoyed reading this, and if you did (or didn't): Feedback rocks my world. :)


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